bottle share

These photos were taken Thursday evening at a Christmas Bottle Share benefiting the Richstone Family Center, which was held at the King Harbor Brewing tasting room.

In what has become a Christmas tradition in the South Bay, local craft beer aficionado and beer hoarder Chad Hazen, held the fifth in a series of bottle shares benefiting Richstone Family Center.

The first of the bottle shares was in December of 2014 when Hazen decided he wanted to quit drinking beer for a year while he trained for a marathon. As he travels a lot for work he had built up quite a collection of craft beer and he felt it would be too much temptation to have all that beer around while he trained. He got together with King Harbor Brewing Company, he is one of the investors, and they decided they would have a bottle share benefiting Richstone Family Center. Continue reading →

I am not going to say I told you so, but I was not kidding when I suggested that Chad Hazen’s prior beer tasting benefits for the Richstone Family Center were better than any beer festival I have attended; and that includes the Firestone Invitational. Yesterday’s rare beer tasting at the Steinhaus at Alpine Village was no exception; everyone had the same comment as soon as they walked into the area set aside for us, where do I start?

Shortly after the event started, a Craft Beer Guy follower walked up to thank me for promoting the event as he had had “Heady Topper, Westvleteren 12, Rare Barrel, and Dark Lord all in the first 15 minutes.” Try doing that at your favorite beer festival.

As you look through the photos you are going to notice lots and lots of great beer and lots of big smiles. People really could not help themselves; it really was like an adult version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, with all the attendees having won a Golden Ticket. Continue reading →

As I announced last week, local craft beer hoarder Chad Hazen, in conjunction with King Harbor Brewing Company and Steinhaus Restaurant and Beerhall at Alpine Village, will be holding his third in a series of rare craft beer tastings with 90% of the proceeds going to benefit the Richstone Family Center in Hawthorne.

I have mentioned numerous times that Hazen’s prior events have been better than any beer festival I have attended to date; now I have obtained a list of the beers that will be there so you can see for yourself. Just take a look at Chad’s Beer Cellar Bottle List Continue reading →

Regular readers of this site have probably noticed that I promote quite a few craft beer events, with an emphasis on those that are fundraisers. Whatever the event the primary factor in determining whether or not I will promote the event is value. I do not want anyone to attend an event and not be glad they did. On May 7, Chad Hazen and King Harbor Brewing Company are holding their third in a series of rare bottle shares with the proceeds going to the Richstone Family Center in Hawthorne.

Ever since last December, I have been telling anyone that would listen that this event was coming up and it is not one to be missed. Actually, what I have been telling people is that this bottle share is better than the Firestone Invitational when it comes to the number of available beers and there are no lines since ticket sales are limited to 100 attendees!

The first of the bottle shares was in December of 2014 when local craft beer aficionado and beer hoarder Chad Hazen decided he wanted to quit drinking beer for a year while he trained for a marathon. As he travels a lot for work he had built up quite a collection of craft beer and he felt it would be too much temptation to have all that beer around while he trained. He got together with King Harbor Brewing Company, he is one of the investors, and they decided they would have a bottle share benefiting Richstone Family Center. Instead of attendees bringing their own bottles, Hazen provided about 80 from his collection to be shared with the 50 attendees that purchased tickets. As you can see from the list of beers, it was an amazing time. Continue reading →

Well, there are still a couple of days left in 2015 but I think it is safe to write my year-end review of 2015. To be honest, there has been so much activity in the craft beer world this past year that I would not be surprised to have something new pop up before Thursday night.(So, this is taking me a while to write, and yes, there have been updates since I started).

There were several beer buyouts that seemed to dominate most other craft beer sites, but the craft world in my immediate domain only seemed to increase. Yeah, Golden Road got bought, but I only went there for special events and I guess that means there will be fewer of them there in the future. In the meantime, the reach of this site seems to be increasing. In the beginning people pretty much pigeonholed this site as covering the South Bay craft beer scene only. This year I covered various local beer events from the Antelope Valley to Orange County. Attendees have come up asking if I am now covering the west side, or wherever we might be. I guess the answer is yes; and I will expand my area as long as it is requested.

2015 in the South Bay ended pretty much as it started, with the soft open of a new brewpub. In January Phantom Carriage officially opened, and at the end of December HopSaint Brewing Company opened their doors. While they are open daily, the official opening of HopSaint will be January 1, 2016 when they will start serving lunch at 11:30 AM. Continue reading →

On Saturday afternoon, local craft beer hoarder Chad Hazen put about 150 bottles of his collection of rare craft beer up for his 2nd Annual Holiday Bottle Share Benefiting the Richstone Family Center; the event was held at the King Harbor Brewing Company’s tasting room. All of the monies raised went to the Richstone Family Center which is located in Hawthorne. The Richstone Family Center is dedicated to preventing and treating child abuse.

I tried making sure all of you knew about this event, but a relatively few showed up. There was a cap of 100 tickets being sold, but if they sold 50, I would be surprised. If you meant to go but forgot, you blew it. Take a look at the list of brews we had available to us:Continue reading →

On Saturday afternoon I happened to notice a post on my Facebook feed that there was a bottle share planned for 4:00 PM at Zayna Flaming Grill in Redondo Beach. There were a couple things that caught my eye; the first was most likely the photo accompanying the announcement that included ISO:FT by The Bruery, a Russian River Beatification and a Cigar City Hunahpu’s. The other was that it was being announced by Adam’s Fine Wines & Liquors. You see, the first time I met the owner of Adam’s, Kevin Olson, was at the first bottle share I ever attended back in July 2012 at Sophie’s Place. We had such a good time that I knew this would be a great one to attend; it turns out I was right.

As it was a last minute event, there were only a handful of attendees, only a couple of whom I knew; but after a couple hours everyone was chatting and sharing as though we had been friends for years. That is what craft beer does; it makes strangers into acquaintances and acquaintances into friends. There may have only been a few of us, but the beers that were brought showed that everyone involved enjoyed only the finest. The bottles that were shared included:

Sour in the Rye (Kumquats) (2013) by The Bruery
Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout (2013) by Cigar City Brewing
The Abyss (2013) by Deschutes Brewery
Apricot Ale (2013) by Cascade Brewing Company (USA)
Noyaux (2011) by Cascade Brewing Company (USA)
Batch #100 by Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project
Sanctification (Batch 112812) by Russian River Brewing Company
Supplication (Batch 092414) by Russian River Brewing Company
Beatification (Batch 006) by Russian River Brewing Company
Bourbon County Brand Stout Vanilla Rye (2014) by Goose Island Beer Co.
Darkstar November by Bottle Logic Brewing
ISO:FT by The Bruery
Veritas 013 by The Lost Abbey

Over the past two years I have spoken before multiple planning commissions in support of the issuance of Conditional Use Permits for a few of the recently opened brewery tasting rooms in the South Bay. While each speech has been tailored around the city, brewery and prior experience, there is one comment that has remained the same in each. Strangers become acquaintances then friends as a result of American craft beer. Anyone that has spent time in the numerous tasting rooms around here will likely nod in agreement; it is something I see and experience on a regular basis.

Two weeks ago I was at the Holiday Bottle Share put on by Chad Hazen and King Harbor Brewing Company benefiting the Richstone Family Center. While I was there I was approached by one of the attendees, April, that I have seen around but had never really talked to. April informed me that she and her husband Keith were having a bottle share and they invited me to attend. These photos are from the bottle share that was held last night. Continue reading →

Suppose you had an outstanding collection of craft beer and you wanted to go on the wagon for a year, what would you do? Well, if you are anything like local craft beer aficionado and beer hoarder Chad Hazen you donate a large portion of it for a bottle share to benefit a local charity. As Hazen told me, he decided he wanted to quit drinking beer for a year while he trains for a marathon and his collection of beer was just a little too much temptation. He got together with King Harbor Brewing Company, of which he is one of the investors, and they decided they would have a bottle share benefiting Richstone Family Center which is located in Hawthorne. The Richstone Family Center is dedicated to preventing and treating child abuse and holding the event just before Christmas just seemed right to Hazen and King Harbor Brewing.

This bottle share was a little different than any bottle share I have attended previously in that attendees did not bring any bottles; the beers were all donated by Hazen from his personal stash; and what a stash it was. The published beer list would make any bottle shop proud: Continue reading →

With the primary question being, “is there beer after 60?”, local beer celebrity and writer Tomm Carroll celebrated his 60th birthday Sunday afternoon with about 100 friends and family joining him at the exclusive Chloe’s at Golden Road Brewing in Los Angeles. Chloe’s is a private, members-only club at the Golden Road Brewing pub that one must work in the beer industry to be invited to join. This was my first time to visit Golden Road, so it was pretty cool to be invited to join the festivities.

For those that think the name Tomm Carroll sounds familiar, there are a couple of good reasons for that. First off, there are about three guys named Tomm Carroll that are involved in the Southern California craft beer scene. This particular Tomm Carroll is a contributing writer for Celebrator Beer News with his regular column, Live and Drink in L.A. as well as Beer Paper LA where he has an entertaining series Los Angeles, BC (Before Craft).

The afternoon consisted of camaraderie, tasty snacks including crab cakes, sliders, pretzels and more, birthday cake and beer. In fact, lots of beer. In addition to the seven Golden Road brews they had on tap there was an amazing bottle share that featured a veritable who’s who of beer which such brews as a 2007 Dark Lord, Gueuze Cuvée René by Brouwerij Lindemans, a Mont des Cats by Abbaye Mont des Cats and even a 1993 Samichlaus to name but a few. Suffice it to say, there were more bottles than people to drink them so I think Tomm’s beer collection may have gained a few new members.

As far as the question, is there beer after 60? It seems safe to say that there is plenty of beer after 60. Happy birthday, Tomm. Cheers! Continue reading →